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Sep 18, 1215
Magna Carta
Issued in latin in the year 1215. Magna Carta was the first document forced onto a King of England in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges. -
Mayflower Compact
The Mayflower was originally bound for the Colony of Virginia, financed by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London. Storms forced the landing to be at the hook of Cape Cod in what is now Massachusetts. It was in essence a social contract in which the settlers consented to follow the compact's rules and regulations for the sake of survival. -
Petition of Rights
It is a major English constitutional document that sets out specific liberties of the subject that the king is prohibited from infringing. The Petition contains restrictions on non-Parliamentary taxation, forced billeting of soldiers, imprisonment without cause, and restricts the use of martial law. Charles I signed the Petition. -
English Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is an Act of the Parliament of England passed on 16 December 1689. It was a restatement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary, inviting them to become joint sovereigns of England. lays down limits on the powers of the crown and sets out the rights of Parliament and rules for freedom of speech in Parliament, the requirement for regular elections to Parliament and the right to petition the monarch without fear o -
French and Indian War
The war was fought primarily between the colonies of British America and New France. The Battle of Jumonville Glen, and the Battle of the Monogahela. France and Britain both suffered financially because of the war, with significant long-term consequences. -
Albany Plan of Union
Benjamin Franklin suggested this plan. The colonial assemblies and the British representatives rejected the Albany Plan.The join or die is a famous political cartoon associated with this plan. -
King George III takes power
The French and Indian War gave us our first true breath of freedom along with the desire to continue to live free or die. -
Stamp Act
Imposed a direct tax by the British Parliament specifically on the colonies of British America, and it required that many printed materials in the colonies be produced on stamped paper produced in London, carrying an embossed revenue stamp.These printed materials were legal documents, magazines, newspapers and many other types of paper used throughout the colonies. It played a major role in defining the grievances and enabling the organized colonial resistance that led to the American Revolution -
Boston Massacre
British Army soldiers killed five civilian men and injured six others. British troops had been stationed in Boston, capital of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, since 1768 in order to protect and support crown-appointed colonial officials attempting to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation. -
Boston Tea Party
The Boston Tea Party was a political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. Parliament responded in 1774 with the Coercive Acts, or Intolerable Acts, which, among other provisions, ended local self-government in Massachusetts and closed Boston's commerce. -
First Continental congress
A convention of delegates from twelve colonies that met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, early in the American Revolution. Attended by 56 members appointed by the legislatures of twelve of the Thirteen Colonies. The Congress had two primary accomplishments. The first was a compact among the colonies to boycott British goods beginning on December 1, 1774. The second accomplishment of the Congress was to provide for a Second Continental Congress to meet on May 10, 1775. -
Intolerable Acts
The Patriot name for a series of punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Massachusetts after the Boston Tea party. The British Parliament hoped these punitive measures would, by making an example of Massachusetts, reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp Act. -
Lexington and Concord
The first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. The battle was a significant failure because the expedition contributed to the fighting it was intended to prevent, and because few weapons were actually seized. The major generals were John Parker, James Barrett, John Buttrick, William Heath,Joseph Warren, Isaac Davis, Francis Smith, John Pitcairn and, Hugh Percy.He alerted the Colonial militia to the approach of British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord. -
Second Continental Congress
They met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania. The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Peyton Randolph, Charles Thomson, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, and Thomas Jefferson were just a few of the leaders, -
Declaration of independence
A statement adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, which announced that the 13 American colonies, then at war with Great Britain, regarded themselves as independent states, and no longer a part of the British Empire. Instead they formed a union that would become a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was unanimously approved on July 2. A committee had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when congress vot -
Articles of Confederation
An agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Samuel Huntington was the first president under the Articles of Confederation. -
Start of Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
